The struggle for justice is a marathon not a sprint: A personal reflection.
Release Date: 07 April 2006
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary General
Dear e-CIVICUS readers,
Before I begin, I would like to sincerely apologize for the length of time it has been since I last wrote this column. My sixth year at CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation included additional responsibilities related to the unprecedented citizen mobilisation around the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) and as a result my body complained severely. My doctor responded by putting me off work for several weeks.
I often urge civil society activists to remain positive and look at each small victory, and each defeat, as an opportunity for learning and laying foundations for future efforts to create a more just, sustainable, equitable, democratic and peaceful world. During my recuperative leave, I identified three developments that had a particularly emotional draining impact on me and many other activists last year but also offered an opportunity to learn, reflect and move forward.
First, was the realisation that there is a huge gap between the rhetoric of working to make the world a just place and the reality of implementation, particularly from those that wield immense power. Last year, many of us, perhaps naively, felt that the modest demands that we were making for a breakthrough on, for example, economic justice (including trade justice), would yield much greater positive outcomes than what eventually occurred. So essentially while there is a lot of positive talk about the environment, poverty eradication, gender equality and so on, action clearly does not follow with the urgency that is required. We should however, recognise that civil society efforts last year secured the largest increase in development finance in history - and in the European context it was something of a success with 0.7% timetable pledged by the whole EU within the next 10 years. As long as the money is spent and spent well this could halve the number of lives lost to extreme poverty - reducing the dreadful daily death toll from 50,000 to 37,000 in 2010 and 25,000 in 2015. The progress on debt cancellation, while less than what was called for, is also testament to the power of united joint action between different parts of civil society and of working with progressive allies in other sectors. So while we acknowledge the progress made every day in the lives of ordinary people around the world as a result of action taken by ordinary citizens for the public good, we must also acknowledge that ‘justice delayed is justice denied’.
Second, last year was emotionally painful for the global civil society movement due to many deaths of treasured activists. I found the pain of losing Barbara Kwateng, from the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in July, two weeks after the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, hard to cope with given that we had worked so closely in the months leading to her death. We had become friends and comrades even before we met since most of our work was done across the oceans via cyberspace for the first ‘White Band Day’ when millions of people responded to the Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP). Sadly, Barbara’s death, was followed by the tragic death of colleagues from Nigeria in a plane crash, including the Coordinator of GCAP in Nigeria, Justice Egware (with whom I had the privilege of spending about 15 days of the last month of his life in Ghana at a historic event called Africa Standing Tall Against Poverty and at the UN Millennium Summit in September in New York). John Moro, who was leading the CIVICUS Civil Society Index Project and also actively involved in GCAP, also lost his life in the same crash. It is important to remember that not taking time to grieve sufficiently because of the next campaign or the next big struggle does not do justice to those we have loved and lost but also means that the wound remains open forever unless we make the space to heal. Making this space is important because only through healing can we continue the campaigns that our lost colleagues had dedicated themselves to.
Third, the failure of governments who preside over some of the poorest citizens in the world to act with a sense of justice and respect for human rights was of deep and continuing concern. Whether it is inertia around the HIV/AIDS pandemic that takes 6000 lives daily on the African continent alone or continuously paying lip service to gender equality without the requisite sense of urgency and effort, the fact that stories of corruption, which afflict both rich and poor nations, abound when so many citizens are losing their lives to the violence of poverty and exclusion, all suggest that so much more work needs to be done.
Incidentally, I am writing this piece on a flight from South Africa to Ethiopia, where the launch of GCAP in April 2005 was banned. As media reports have recorded there was controversy around the elections which ended in political violence and several deaths. Two GCAP colleagues have been languishing in prison since then and have been recently charged with treason. I am travelling with the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, Archbishop Ndungane, who is deeply concerned about holding African governments accountable as well as those leaders from developed countries that make big promises but deliver little. We are part of a small delegation including Salil Shetty of the UN Millennium Campaign that is going to Ethiopia to show solidarity with our GCAP colleagues and to appeal to the government for a just and peaceful outcome for the members of our common human family who remain in prison.
These three developments weighed heavily on me. However, during my leave, I received a lot of very valuable advice from friends, family and colleagues in civil society, some of which I now want to share with you.
To start, I was reminded about the story I often tell about one of my best friends, Lenny Naidu, who was brutally murdered by the apartheid police at the age of 24, together with three young women activists from my home town. The last time I saw Lenny alive, we were both on the run from the apartheid regime, we were essentially living underground, and it was a painful and difficult goodbye. Lenny asked me, “Kumi, what is the biggest contribution a human being can make in the quest for justice and democracy?” Without blinking an eye-lid I responded: “Giving ones life for the cause.” To which Lenny responded: “No it is not giving your life, but giving the rest of your life.” I was too young and inexperienced to fully understand what Lenny was saying. He explained that anyone could get killed in a demonstration for example (then a regular occurrence in South African life and on several occasions we came close to death ourselves during those times) and become a martyr. However, to commit yourself to a lifetime of struggle, sacrifice and dedication to the cause of humanity is the biggest sacrifice one can make even if it does not lead to a heroic death or particular heroic moments of action. Essentially, he was saying the struggle for justice is a marathon and not a sprint, so how we deploy our 24 hours per day, how we find a work-activism and life balance are all important issues to consider.
I had close friends who were quite strong in their suggestion to me that not pacing myself properly, not taking care of my health and not finding some measure of work-life balance is irresponsible. I have taken these comments in the spirit they were intended and I share this with you, since I know that many of the readers of e-CIVICUS, some of whom I am privileged to have met over the years, struggle with similar dilemmas. This is irrespective of whether you are working at a grassroots level or whether you are part of an international civil society campaign.
One of the driving factors of many civil society workers and activists I have met over the years is a burning desire for justice and the simple idea that you are either part of the problem or you are part of the solution. Many activists go well beyond the normal call to action because they want to see injustices eradicated in their lifetime and correctly believe that when human beings who recognise injustice are silent or passive, we unwittingly condone atrocities of various kinds.
Many of the folks I met last year, in the various national campaigns around the Millennium Development Goals and GCAP, inspired and energised me, so much so, that I lost sense of how much travel, lack of sleep and exercise, lack of a proper diet, and so on the human body could endure. If there is one thing that I have learnt and want to share with you is that taking care of ourselves is important and nurturing our mental and physical well being keeps us strong to continue the various struggles for justice that are taking place in small villages and towns as well as at big international gatherings.
To some of you who heard through the grapevine that I was not well and sent messages of solidarity, I am deeply grateful. As the first quarter of 2006 comes to an end, on behalf of all my colleagues here at CIVICUS we wish you a year of inspired work and activism. I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of you to join us at the next CIVICUS World Assembly which takes place in Glasgow, Scotland from 21-26 June.
And to end on a simple health tip: drink lots of water, at least three litres a day. Remember, if you have access to clean water you have no excuse, bearing in mind that millions of citizens around the world do not have this option!!!
